Mississippi – Instructional Materials
In a study of 15 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, researchers at SREB identified the degree to which the Mississippi Department of Education provided leadership and support for the statewide use of high-quality instructional materials that aligned to the state’s K-12 college- and career-readiness standards in English language arts (ELA) and math.
SREB developed a list of actions that demonstrate state leadership and support in each of the three areas listed below. These actions, or “look-fors,” guided data collection and the analysis of state efforts. Read about the look-fors in the full report, located to the right. State efforts in each area fell into one of three levels of implementation: minimal, essential or strong. In some cases, SREB researchers also designated a state action as notable. Below is a detailed description of this state’s efforts.
Table of Contents
| Highlights | Area 1 | Area 2 | Area 3 | Moving Forward |
Highlights from Mississippi
- Notable use of nationally recognized criteria for developing, reviewing and selecting the online, on-demand instructional materials the department made available to educators, along with training for educators on using that criteria to enhance local instructional materials alignment. These efforts helped build local capacity to implement the Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards in 2014-15 and 2015-16. These efforts also supported efforts to implement the revised Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards, which educators began implementing in 2016-17.
- Extensive guidance for planning differentiated instruction aligned to state standards, including a special education toolkit, a gifted education guide, a Response to Intervention manual and scaffolding documents.
Area 1: Establishing Clear Conventions
Did the department establish clear criteria and a clear process for identifying high-quality instructional materials aligned to the state’s college- and career-readiness standards?
Mississippi provided essential leadership and support in this area.
The department used clear criteria based on nationally recognized tools to develop, review and select the online, on-demand instructional materials the department offered educators. However, the department did not provide alignment criteria beyond the Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards to state rating committees to support their review of textbooks. The department established a process that involved educators to regularly develop, review and select online, on-demand instructional materials.
Table 1: State Criteria and Processes for Reviewing Textbooks and Online, On-Demand Instructional Materials
| State authority and role in developing and selecting instructional materials | Criteria the state used to develop and select materials | Process the state used to develop and select materials |
| Textbooks | ||
In accordance with state law:
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The department provided the Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards to the subject area rating committees. The department did not provide alignment criteria, such as those articulated in a rubric (a document that outlines expectations, guidelines and procedures) for assessing the degree of alignment of materials. |
Subject area rating committees, made up of four teachers appointed by the state superintendent and three content experts appointed by the governor, were responsible for reviewing and recommending items for adoption by the board. Publishers were required to demonstrate the correlation of textbooks to the standards, and the rating committees were responsible for verifying the alignment. Items were adopted every five years. Math items were most recently adopted in 2012, followed by ELA and literature items in 2016. |
| Online, On-Demand Instructional Materials | ||
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The department provided repositories of Math and ELA model lesson plans. Educators could use these items to inform their planning. |
Achieve’s Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) rubrics. These rubrics are nationally recognized as clear, detailed and accurate tools to assess the quality and alignment of instructional materials to college- and career-readiness standards. |
The department worked with Mississippi teachers during summer 2016 to develop exemplar units in ELA and mathematics for grades pre-K through 12, and submitted the units to external experts for review. The department reported plans to release approved items by the end of 2016. |
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The department provided collections of text exemplars for grades K-6 and seven through 12. Educators could use these exemplars to inform their planning and instruction. |
The department developed criteria based on Student Achievement Partners’ text complexity tools. These tools are nationally recognized as clear, detailed and accurate instruments to assess the alignment of texts to college- and career-readiness standards. |
The department selected a task force of teachers, ELA specialists and higher education representatives to compile, review and select texts submitted by Mississippi teachers. The exemplars for grades seven through 12 were selected in 2013, and the exemplars for grades K-6 were chosen in 2014. |
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The department provided a collection of practice tests, which educators could use to prepare students for the annual statewide assessment. |
The department and Mississippi teachers created blueprints of the annual statewide assessment to inform the development of practice tests. A technical advisory committee of national assessment experts reviewed the blueprints to help ensure their alignment to state standards. |
Department staff and Questar Assessment Inc. developed and reviewed the practice tests in 2015-16. The department reported plans to develop more practice test content in 2016-17. |
Area 2: Supporting Local Efforts
Did the department provide guidance, instructional materials, professional learning and technical assistance to build local knowledge and skills, and support educator use of aligned materials?
Mississippi provided essential leadership and support in this area.
The department provided several types of online guidance and instructional materials for on-demand access by educators. The department offered multiple types of professional learning and technical assistance, including training on how to apply the nationally recognized criteria the department used to develop and review online instructional materials (described above). Examples of the department’s efforts include the following.
Guidance
Guidance could include information about the standards and aligned teaching strategies, rubrics for gauging alignment of instructional materials, templates for designing aligned instruction, lists of adopted textbooks and online professional learning resources. Mississippi provided the following guidance documents.
- List of board-adopted textbooks
- Information from EdReports.org on the alignment of instructional materials to college- and career-readiness standards
- Videos deconstructing the standards developed in partnership with SEDL and released quarterly
- Archived training materials and curriculum development tools for Math, ELA and literacy
- Extensive guidance for differentiating instruction for diverse learners, including a special education toolkit and archived training materials, a gifted education guide, a Response to Intervention manual and scaffolding documents to support instructional planning
Instructional Materials
Instructional materials could include a variety of tools and resources that educators use to plan and deliver instruction, such as model lesson and unit plans, sample formative assessments, textbooks, student workbooks and manipulatives, recommended texts and videos, and multimedia learning tools. Mississippi provided the following types of instructional materials.
- Math, ELA and literacy collections of model lesson plans, text exemplars and resources to support implementation of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act of 2013
- Practice tests for the annual statewide assessments in ELA and math for grades three through eight, and Algebra I and English II
Professional Learning and Technical Assistance
- Professional learning and technical assistance services, provided either locally or at Regional Educational Service Agencies, that districts selected from a menu of services. As part of the regional service delivery model led by the department’s professional development coordinators, the menu included training on using the EQuIP rubrics and department-provided tools to develop standards-based, differentiated instruction and classroom assessments. The kind and amount of services delivered statewide varied based on a number of factors, including district demand.
- Regional training sessions open to all educators on using the EQuIP rubrics, and tools from Student Achievement Partners’ Text Set Project to create aligned lesson plans and classroom materials. In 2014-15, 498 educators participated; in 2015-16, 119 participated.
- Training on Literacy Design Collaborative and Mathematics Design Collaborative practices and tools for department professional development coordinators and school-based coaches statewide, provided in 2014-15 in partnership with SREB
- On-site support for implementation of Mississippi’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act of 2013, provided to selected K-3 schools in 2015-16 by 75 literacy coaches
- Intensive two-week training in June 2016 for 72 selected teachers to help develop model lesson and unit plans for district use, provided with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
“Given our lean staff in the department, we have used teachers and content specialists for a number of years now to enhance the support we offer. We know that we can get a lot more done with support from teachers, and we’ll end up with tools that are going to be more useful to them.”—Staff member, Mississippi Department of Education
Area 3: Using Data to Continuously Improve State Efforts
Did the department regularly gather and use multiple types of data in order to continuously improve its leadership and support for the statewide alignment of instructional materials to college- and career-readiness standards?
Mississippi provided essential leadership and support in this area.
The department regularly gathered three of the five types of data that SREB deemed key for state leadership. Staff members from across the agency participated in analysis and discussion of the data. The department used the data in two ways to inform its work.
Table 2: Data the Department Gathered to Inform its Efforts
| Key types of data | Data sources |
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Educator use of state guidance and instructional materials, and educator participation in the professional learning and technical assistance the department offered |
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Educator perceptions of the quality of the state’s offerings |
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Educator emerging needs |
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Impact of state offerings on measurable teacher or student outcomes |
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Local curriculum alignment practices |
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The department used this data to improve two of its supports for local instructional materials alignment:
- Guidance and instructional materials
- Professional development and technical assistance services
The department established the following routines to analyze data, discuss findings and determine actions to address identified needs:
- Content specialists from across the department—ELA and math education, federal programs, professional development and instructional technology—met regularly.
Moving Forward
As Mississippi strives to continuously improve, state leaders may wish to consider the following recommendations.
- Enhance efforts to establish clear, rigorous and consistent conventions for identifying high-quality instructional materials aligned to state standards. Develop criteria to guide the review of textbooks. Align this criteria to the criteria used to evaluate online instructional materials. Verify that all of the criteria fully reflect the content and rigor of the state’s standards – for example, by submitting them to trusted, third-party experts for review, or basing them on nationally recognized tools. To keep the items in the department’s digital repositories current and address educators’ emerging needs, establish a process for developing, reviewing and updating items at least annually. Consistent, rigorous conventions will support Mississippi’s implementation of the revised Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards, which educators began implementing in 2016-17. See strong state efforts to establish clear and consistent criteria and rigorous review processes described in the Florida, Louisiana, Maryland and North Carolina profiles.
- Enhance support for local efforts to align instructional materials.
- See efforts to provide extensive online, on-demand guidance and instructional materials noted in the Florida, Louisiana, Maryland and North Carolina profiles.
- See professional learning and technical assistance initiatives that were intensive, integrated and sustained, and that reached large numbers of districts, schools or educators described in the Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky profiles.
- Enhance the department’s use of data for continuous improvement. For example, gather information on local curriculum alignment practices in order to design state services and tools that meet statewide needs, and target schools and districts that need the most support. Examine how the use of state materials and services impacts educator practice and student learning. Involve educators and partners in the analysis and discussion of data, to include their perspectives in decisions the department makes about how it can better support local efforts to align instructional materials. See descriptions of strong state use of data in the Arkansas, Delaware, Tennessee and West Virginia profiles.